Zooming to Black Hole at Milky Way Galaxy's Core: Sagittarius A* | ESO

Zooming to Black Hole at Milky Way Galaxy's Core: Sagittarius A* | ESO

The European Southern Observatory’s exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the center of the Milky Way. New observations show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside a four million solar mass black hole—the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole.

This video starts with a wide view of the Milky Way and then zooms into a visualization of data from simulations of orbital motions of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

Credit: ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calçada/N. Risinger

Duration: 1 minute, 34 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 7, 2018

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #MilkyWay #SpiralGalaxy #BlackHole #SagittariusAStar #Cosmos #Universe #VeryLargeTelescope #VLT #VLTI #Interferometer #GRAVITY #ParanalObservatory #Chile #Europe #STEM #Education #Visualization #UHD #HD #Video